LETTER: Autograph letter signed, "Mary L. Dutton."
Dutton, Hon. Mary Laura. Autograph letter signed, “Mary L. Dutton,” to an unnamed editor or
publisher, regarding “alterations & additions in my novel” [Woman’s Temptation], September 2,
1859; bifolium leaf, three pages.
A poignant letter, written on the verge of the author’s death, concerning her only novel, written when she
was seventeen, which she would not live to see published. (It was published by Hurst and Blackette in
London as Woman’s Temptation in 1860.)
She begins: “Dear Sir / As I have not heard from you, I write to remind you of your promise to let me
know your opinion of the alterations & additions in my novel “Geraldine,” which I submitted to your
judgement in July; when you promised to let me hear from you in two or three weeks at furtherst.”
She presumes the book should appear that autumn, and it has occurred to her “that the title of One Error,
which was suggested for it, too nearly resembles “One Fault,” - the title, I believe, of one of Mrs.
Trollope’s books?’ She closes by apologising for troubling him.
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